


Mad Dogs and Englishmen

by Stacicity



Category: Kingsman (Movies)
Genre: Harry being enthusiastic about antiques, M/M, Merlin watches Love Island, Mr Whippy, grumpy old men in love, shamelessly domestic spies, utterly self-indulgent rambling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-27
Updated: 2018-06-27
Packaged: 2019-05-29 11:52:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15072575
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stacicity/pseuds/Stacicity
Summary: Harry and Merlin find a day off in the middle of a heatwave and escape to York. There is Mr Whippy, cheesy chips and gravy, and a lot of reminiscing from our favourite middle-aged men.





	Mad Dogs and Englishmen

It’s not often that Harry ventures north of Birmingham. He’s a Southerner through and through, born and raised in a pretty village near Winchester. He was familiar with Winchester from his school days, with Oxford from university, with Ascot and with Ilfracombe and with London, and all manner of places determinedly south by anybody’s standards. Whenever Merlin takes it upon himself to go all obstinately Northern in response to Kingsman’s southern bias, expounding the values of cheesy chips and gravy and of _proper_ fish and chips, Harry defends the South with as much vim and vigour as he can muster. 

Even so, he has to admit that York has a certain charm to it, at least on the rare occasions when the Ouse hasn’t flooded and left the whole city ankle-deep in water. Even then it doesn’t seem to make much difference to the locals who determinedly wade out to their local pubs and slosh over to the bar regardless. Harry has to admire that sort of determination. 

Today, however, York is dry enough. The heatwave that’s slammed through the whole country has left London sweltering and sticky, and under those circumstances even Harry can understand Merlin’s need to flee northwards on one of their rare days off. He refuses to set foot in Scotland unless under a very specific set of circumstances - a wedding, a funeral, the Edinburgh Festival – so that’s out, and York is a fitting compromise between Scotland and London. 

It’s July, and most of the students that fill York have left, leaving the streets full of tourists gravitating towards Betty’s and the Minster and all of the places that Harry is keen to avoid. Although Betty’s is _tempting_ , if only because a proper tea ceremony is an indulgence that Harry finds hard to resist. The incredulous look that Merlin gives him when Harry suggests it, however, is enough to put pay to that suggestion all on its own. 

“It’s thirty bloody degrees, how on _earth_ can you want tea?” 

“Tea’s rather cooling, in its way,” Harry replies defensively, a stubborn set to his jaw that suggests he’s about to embark on an educational lecture. “I’ll have you know that in India they drink it all the time and it’s far hotter there- “

“And they’re _used_ to that heat. I’m not.” 

“Well, I wasn’t suggesting we have it now. It’s hardly the right time.” Harry sniffs, glancing at his watch. One in the afternoon is too early for tea but it’s about the right time for lunch, and definitely the right time to seek shelter from the sun which seems to have forgotten the North’s reputation for grey skies and fog and is stubbornly shining out. “We could pick up supplies for a picnic? There’s a rather nice little deli on Walmgate, they do excellent pork pies.” 

“Mad dogs and Englishmen,” Merlin mutters and tracks a determined path to the nearest patch of shade. He doesn’t suit hot weather. Cashmere jumpers aren’t appropriate garb for these temperatures, and whilst Harry is all in favour of seeing him in as few layers as possible even he has to admit that the t-shirt and jeans combo is rather incongruous on Merlin. He squints at Harry behind his sunglasses, arms folded, apparently blaming him for the heatwave. If it keeps Merlin in t-shirts for a while longer, though, Harry’s all for it. Those cashmere jumpers do a good job of disguising his body, making him look deceptively soft and administrative. 

Whilst at HQ Merlin is always careful, far more careful than Harry would ever have been in his positions, keeping everything ticking over and running his department with razor-precision, all “yes, sirs” and “certainly”, ever the dutiful staff member. The Knights are the glamorous ones at HQ, swanning around as if they’ve never even heard the word “paperwork” before, technically the top of the pecking-order. It’s utter horseshit, obviously. HQ would crumble without Merlin and his little magic circle (he despises it when Harry calls R&D that, which of course is why Harry does it), and they all know it full well. 

Besides, techie or not, Merlin handles the training of the recruits for a reason. He’s as fit and as skilled as any of the Knights, and were he so inclined Harry has no doubt that he could jump back into the field without any problem whatsoever. 

Back in the day, Merlin had taken to the field more often. His own particular strategy - quick, efficient, get in and get out and don’t cause any unnecessary commotion – had seen him through a string of successful missions. Diffusing bombs, opening safes, disarming security systems, Merlin (Lamorak, back then) had taken everything in his stride without a problem. So much so, in fact, that Arthur had come to the conclusion that if everybody could handle those issues like Merlin, they’d be far more successful. So what better way of ensuring that than to make sure that Merlin was handling the other Knights? 

At that time, it must have felt like a demotion. Going from a Knight to a member of staff, albeit a vital one, was a significant change of pace. Merlin had taken to it like he took to everything else, of course. At the time Harry had never asked how he’d felt about it, and Merlin had never volunteered the information. It simply was what it was. 

There’s a lot about them like that. Whatever is, is. When they’re at HQ, when Harry’s in the field and Merlin’s watching him fight off six men at once or infiltrate a cartel or seduce somebody (several somebodies) into bed for information or for cover or simply because he feels like, it’s all professional. Bar a few veiled comments here and there, those occasions where Merlin’s alone in R&D and can talk to Harry as they talk at home, they’re a Knight and his handler and that’s all there is to that. 

At work, Merlin lectures Harry about being late, about handing in his paperwork on time (or at all, to be honest), about showing off unnecessarily and spraining his ankle after trying to jump out of a third-storey window, about remembering that he isn’t twenty-six anymore. At home, Merlin and Harry move the ketchup from the cupboard to the fridge and back in a battle that’s been raging for fifteen years. Merlin queries why any one human being could need more than three pillows at a time, and Harry makes a face every time he sees Love Island on the television. Why anybody would want to watch a group of juvenile, shallow people strut and peacock and generally make tits of themselves is quite beyond him. 

When he makes this point to Merlin he gets a long look that brings up some comparisons Harry doesn’t like to consider, and no response.  
At least the one thing upon which they can both agree is that in this weather there’s little better than a Mr Whippy to cool the blood. Harry pours an extravagant amount of artificial strawberry sauce onto his, half of it melting onto his wrist where he has to lick it off before it stains his cuffs. Merlin watches him and rolls his eyes and wonders if he’s ever loved anybody so much or so fiercely. 

They make their way across the bridge from the station to the Minster, turning before they’re in the shadow onto Stonegate. It’s rammed with tourists as well, but towards the end they find a five-storey antique shop and Harry makes a noise of unrestrained glee. It’s something of a treasure-trove; there’s everything from a fifteenth century medieval sword (yours for the reasonable price of five grand) to a snuff bottle carved from a mammoth tusk. Harry looks longingly at a candle-holder, thinking back a few weeks to when Eggsy had asked if Harry went to bed in a nightcap and a nightshirt “like Ebenezer Scrooge”. Harry is strongly considering buying the ensemble to answer the door in next time Eggsy calls around, as he’s wont to do at a moment’s notice at the promise of a takeaway or the newest episode of Blue Planet. 

Eventually, though, Merlin can drag him away from examining a tiny silver statue of some sort of terrier – essentially a Monopoly piece with ideas above its station as far as he can tell, but Harry seems enchanted by it – and down the road to what is as much a museum of alcohol as it is a bar, encouragingly named “House of Trembling Madness”. Harry’s happy enough to sit in an alcove below the stuffed heads of a boar and a stag and drink mead like some feasting Viking, and it’s darker and cooler than the rest of York, so Merlin’s happy to let him. 

“I can’t remember the last time I was here,” Harry muses, eyeing the lion’s head above the bar. Fake, he’s sure, but he’s seen stranger things in this peculiar little town, so who’s to say? 

“ _Here_ here? Or York?” 

Harry shrugs, taking another sip of mead, and Merlin makes a mental note to keep an eye on that. Mead goes down like lemonade and can be roughly the strength of wine, and even Harry’s apparently indomitable liver won’t cope with drinking that all day in this heat. 

“York. Or anywhere Northern, actually. I used to go to the Fringe every year from when I was at university, but then again everybody and their mother knows somebody with a show at the Fringe.”

Merlin tries not to roll his eyes. When Harry was at university, all fluffy hair and inflated ego, Merlin had been Hamish Magowan from Glasgow, filling his time with working towards a scholarship to study mathematics, and a boxing ring in his friend’s Da’s cellar to keep him in shape enough for the army, because without plentiful funds at his disposal it would have been stupid not to keep his options open. The Fringe feels to him as much like Scotland as Venice does, but that’s not an argument Harry’s likely to understand.

“It’s good to get out of London,” Merlin concedes after a while, and Harry nods agreement. It’s alright for him; he travels enough as an agent, though less so nowadays. The lack of an eye prohibits him from any serious field-work where peripheral vision might be essential, anything likely to end in a fight. In all honesty, Harry oughtn’t be in the field at all. 

After his return from America, Eggsy had innocently suggested that Harry take up the mantel of Arthur, and the look of sheer horror on Harry’s face was Merlin’s phone background thanks to a quick photo from Roxy. As far as Merlin’s concerned that level of reaction-speed was proof enough of her worth as a Knight if it had ever been in doubt. Which of course, it hadn’t. If they were living through normal times Lancelot would still be the newest of the agents, off on paired missions until she’d proved her mettle, kept safe while she settled into the role. As it was they were still short-staffed enough that they couldn’t afford such indulgences, but they were blessed with Roxy’s competence and her sheer determination to get the job done. She didn’t want pandering to, which was just as well, because they couldn’t afford to pander to her. 

As it was, Harry’s ascension to Arthur would have been his own worst nightmare and a disaster for Kingsman. Harry could barely be persuaded to attend meetings and finish paperwork as it was, and a life of desk-work would have been as bad as a prison-sentence for him. He refused to admit that he wasn’t field-worthy, butterflies or no, and the ensuing row had had Merlin and Harry skulking at opposite ends of the house in Stanhope Mews for a week, barely speaking. 

Eventually, Merlin had been forced to concede that living with Harry if he wasn’t allowed to be useful would be beyond anybody’s capabilities, no matter how much they loved the absurd man, so into the field Harry had gone. Honeypots and recon and fact-finding. It wasn’t the most interesting work, but it kept Harry busy, and that was enough for now. Sooner or later they’d have to find another compromise, but Merlin was desperately pushing that day away as far as he could. Any reminder of Harry’s status as “middle-aged” was liable to cause another argument. 

So for now Harry travels to Kuala Lumpur and to Nizhny Novgorod and to Port Elizabeth and pretends that nothing has changed, and Merlin watches over him and keeps him safe and watches him compensate for the lack of an eye with the same grace with which Harry Hart does everything. A supreme combination of luck and sheer pig-headedness sees him through most missions, and keeps Harry sane in a way that a desk-job never could, and that’s enough for now. 

Merlin’s life, meanwhile, hasn’t changed much since America. Prosthetic legs are a bugger to work with, but they’re simple enough to engineer and customize. Not, as Eggsy suggests, into rocket-boots or those same knife-edge blades that Valentine’s assistant had wielded so efficiently, but into elegant, functional legs that have just enough spring-power in them to make him slightly faster than he’s ever been before once he gets used to them. It’s not ideal, by any stretch, but Merlin’s nothing if not adaptable, and under the circumstances he could have fared far worse. 

A man with one eye and a man with no legs walk into a bar sounds the beginning of a terrible joke in rather poor taste, but there it is, and it can’t be helped now. Besides, they’ve always been good at feigning normality even when nothing about them is normal. Somehow between the missions and the training and the stiff formality of Kingsman they’ve managed to find a way to become acquaintances and friends and lovers and companions, not necessarily in that order, and within the dark confines of the House of Trembling Madness they look like two middle-aged men out for a drink, and nothing more. Never mind that Harry could kill everybody in this room without breaking a sweat. Never mind that Merlin could probably do that and pull a pint at the same time. 

Getting out of London means escaping the stifling confines of the nation’s capital which was as much a part of Kingsman as HQ, even though HQ itself was closer to Guildford than London. Savile Row, Piccadilly Circus, the Hurlingham Club – Kingsman Knights kept their haunts London-based and most parts of the capital from St James’ Park to St Katharine Docks are associated with one Knight or another in Merlin’s mind. Here there’s none of that exhausting pretence of normality. They’re not Knights undercover, here, they’re just two men in a bar. 

As much as Harry might profess to a love of a countryside getaway once in a while, ideally somewhere on the South Downs in a rented cottage where he can dig his toes into the sand and pick mussels from the rocks and play at rusticity for a weekend, Merlin knows he’d never dream of abandoning London. He gets far too excited about each new discovery in this bustling city, the eight-cover restaurant in Clapham that serves nduja with steaming hot flatbread and cool soured cream that has Harry euphoric, the perpetually frigid water of Tooting Bec Lido that can only be properly chased away with a cheese and ham toastie served with a lukewarm and half-flat Dr Pepper from their permanently malfunctioning fridge. London is a playground that changes each day, and Harry revels in it. All the same, Merlin resolves that one day, when they’ve retired, if they live that far, he’ll be able to persuade Harry out of the city and towards somewhere anonymous. 

He loves his job, he does. Some might say that he is his job inasmuch as his gadgets and his clipboard and his expertise are ubiquitous now, and even those brief few weeks where he’d not been at HQ after America had been nothing short of chaotic as R&D – his well-trained, competent, hard-working staff – had all but collapsed, protocol forgotten. Merlin should have been angry at that, and he _is_ , but he can’t hide a hint at satisfaction at it either. Anything can happen in their line of work, and that brush with mortality has led him to push Morgana towards further responsibilities in preparation for her ascension to his role, one of these days, but for now the title of Merlin is his, and is _him_. 

That doesn’t mean that one day he might not slip back to being Hamish again. 

The rest of the day passes by in a search for more cool places. When they do finally reach Walmgate they discover that there’s an excellent wine bar open there that serves wonders like black pudding macarons and oysters, much to Harry’s delight. Their wine list is hardly what Merlin associates with Northern prices, but Harry can’t resist a Shiraz named, intriguingly, Tikka the Cosmic Cat, and it goes down smoothly enough once they’ve opened it. Smoothly enough that they make their way through that and another bottle (“Arrogant Frog” – where do they _find_ these?) with the help of the manager. He, like Harry, has a past in the RAF, and the two of them swap stories with a confidence that makes Merlin roll his eyes, knowing full-well that Harry had only spent three years there but he’s talking like he’s been flying planes all his life. 

Then again, knowing Harry’s childhood, who knows how early he started? 

After two bottles of red it’s hardly surprising that a kebab van parked on Parliament Square draws them into its radius, and now that it’s cooler, evening creeping in, it seems just about acceptable to get chips. Cheesy chips with gravy, much to Harry’s disgust, but he’s had his wine and his peculiar macarons, and Merlin’s not immune to temptation. Hardly immune to that. 

Harry is a walking temptation in and of himself and if Merlin was half as professional as he claims to be he’d never have gone near him. But, like the kebab van in Parliament Square, he seems helpless to resist being drawn into Harry Hart’s wake. It’s why he can’t begrudge those few times he’s looked over in a meeting to see Eggsy staring at Harry like he’s hung the moon, like Eggsy can’t remember that he’s a twenty-five-year-old gymnast with blonde hair and blue eyes and by all rights Harry ought to be starry-eyed over him. They’re a ridiculous pair. Somehow, those few times they’ve been on missions together, Merlin can’t take his eyes off them, Harry and his protégé. They’re in-sync in a way that defies belief, Eggsy responding to each of Harry’s words and Harry, that intractable and stubborn thing, responding to Eggsy. 

In another world, in another life, Merlin wonders what might have happened between those two. He’s not brought it up with Harry, and he suspects that if he ever did it would send Harry into an agony of fretting over his age and his responsibilities as a mentor. Frankly, it’s not worth it. If Eggsy ever decides to take some manner of action, Merlin will take a view then. But the thought of them together isn’t unpleasant. Far from it. And Merlin’s never been able to begrudge Harry what makes him happy. 

On the train back to London Harry reaches over, affectionate with the buzz of red wine and mead in his system, places his hand against Merlin’s and presses a kiss to his cheek, one of those rare displays of physical affection that Merlin doesn’t frown at him for. They’re in a quiet carriage, first-class because Harry claims that the free gin and tonic is worth the thirty-pound cost of an upgrade. He’s wrong, but Merlin appreciates the freedom from crying children and chattering tourists enough to let it slide. He turns his hand to rub his thumb against Harry’s wrist and silently promises himself more days like this.

At work, Merlin harangues recruits through the assault course, and Harry tells jokes in fluent Italian that make a room full of petty criminals laugh and clap him on the shoulders. At home, Harry makes butterscotch Angel Delight as if he’s not yet realised that it’s no longer 1973, and scolds Merlin for sneaking cigarettes in the back garden as if he doesn’t do the exact same thing. At home, Merlin finds Harry in bed watching Ru Paul’s Drag Race with a bemused expression (“Eggsy assured me I’d love it, but to be quite honest it’s far more boring than I expected”), and puts the laptop aside to distract Harry with something much more interesting.  
In London, at HQ, in York, in Devon, Merlin watches Harry. He sleeps splayed out like a starfish, curls falling into his eyes, his posture making his long legs look even longer. In the morning he’ll groan at the first hint of sunlight through the curtains, moan and complain until Merlin relents and makes tea, and then heap absurd praise upon him that makes Merlin scowl and roll his eyes and wonder why he puts up with this fool at all. Merlin feels years rolling past and wonders when they became so very domestic, when they fell into this comfortable rhythm despite a life that promised no comfort and no stability. They’ve both been so lucky, so far; a shot to the head and a landmine to the legs. Harry likes to remind Merlin that despite their hardships they’re still standing, and they’ve lived to see another day. Merlin tells him he’s not funny, and loves him anyway. 

Unbeknownst to Merlin, Harry watches him sometimes too. He watches those sharp features line with worry when Lancelot runs into a rare problem on a mission that she can’t solve herself. He watches bags grow under his eyes after another night of panic at HQ, and he watches Merlin will his hands to stop shaking despite the three cups of coffee that are all his body has for sustenance. Merlin treats his body like an inconvenience more often than not, and Harry wonders how he could bear to scorn something so beautiful. Merlin scowls and glares and sets the world around him into order through sheer force of will, and Harry wonders how he ever felt at home before he found an anchor to keep him grounded. 

On Harry’s mantelpiece, amongst the nick-nacks and curios and hideous Victorian pill-boxes that he finds so much joy in, there’s a series of framed pictures. Harry at university, laughing with a bottle of champagne in one hand and an oar in the other, fresh from the boat race. Merlin and Harry at the Kingsman Christmas party in 2004, a tradition they both despise but feel obliged to attend regardless, the both of them softened by Tristan’s famously lethal punch recipe. There’s a paper crown askew over Merlin’s eyes and the other half of the cracker from which it came in Harry’s hand, and if one were to look closely they’d see Harry’s other hand sneaking under the hem of Merlin’s jumper, a premonition of what was later to occur in a stationary cupboard. 

The last photo is a selfie, incongruously enough, further evidence of Eggsy’s influence on Harry. Harry, distressingly enough, has discovered Snapchat, and Merlin refuses to download it so he’s no clue what his idiot partner is broadcasting to the world, but he suspects rather more of Harry’s snaps contain him than he’d like. It’s a picture from York bridge. The sun’s in Harry’s eyes but he’s smiling through it, his arm around Merlin, the remnants of strawberry sauce dabbed onto the corner of his lips. Merlin’s sure it’s that that’s making him smile in the photo too, somehow charmed by Harry’s ability to yo-yo between being immaculately put-together and undeniably dishevelled. 

Even for two middle-aged spies short two limbs and an eye, there’s something to be found in the North. Nostalgia and anonymity and absurdly expensive antiques, and a moment at an ice-cream van to remind them to feel human. Sometimes, that’s all the equilibrium they need.

**Author's Note:**

> I've not written anything creative for about a decade but I'm leaving uni and I'm going to miss York tremendously so I plonked two middle-aged spies into the middle of it and went on a self-indulgent cathartic ramble. That being said, I hope somebody gets some enjoyment from it! 
> 
> All the places I've mentioned in York and London are real. If you want restaurant recommendations, hit me up, there's few things I like talking about so much as food.
> 
> Find me on tumblr at ajcrawly and shout at me about Merlahad because it is my ultimate ship.


End file.
